Winemaker Notes
The wine shows notes of peach and kiwi with a very subtle and delicate nose. This is a solid wine with broad shoulders on the palate and some pear and lemon flavors. The masculinity of this wine comes from a high phenolic content combined with a 13.5% ethanol and a 1.14% Residual Sugar. For all this, the wine is not sweet and shows perfect balance. The wine is truly cellar worthy and will age for a very long time (10 plus years).
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The wine is finished at 1.2% residual sugar, but tastes bone dry. It’s succulent and juicy, with floral aromas, stone fruits and hints of honeysuckle. Concentrated and dense, it is both bracing and long. The bottle was re-tasted on the second and third days after being opened and retained its crispness and vitality beautifully.
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Wine Spectator
Smooth and polished, offering a lively mouthful of pear, grapefruit and mineral aromas and flavors that play against lively acidity, remaining glassy smooth in texture as the finish lingers. Drink now through 2012.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
As the first recognized wine-growing region in the Pacific Northwest, Yakima Valley is centrally located within Washington’s vast Columbia Valley. The region also includes Washington’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines, Otis Vineyard, planted in 1957, and Harrison Hill Vineyard, planted in 1963. Yakima Valley contains three smaller sub-regions: Rattlesnake Hills, Red Mountain, and Snipes Mountain and is ideal for both red and white wine production. In fact, Yakima Valley is Washington’s most diverse region, boasting more than 40 different grape varieties over about one hundred miles.
The cooler parts of the valley are home to almost half of the Chardonnay and Riesling produced in the state! Both are made in a wide range of styles depending on the conditions of the vineyard site.
But its warmer locations yield a large proportion of Washington’s best Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The finest Yakima Valley reds are jam-packed full of red cherry, currant, raspberry or blackberry fruit, as well as cocoa, herb, spice and savory notes, and exhibit a supple texture, great body, focus and length.